The Hate Campaign Against Hillary Clinton

Published in La Prensa (Panama) on 21 August 2016
by Brittmarie Janson Pérez [link to original]Translated from Spanish by Tom Walker. Edited by Shelby Stillwell.Posted on August 29, 2016.

In the history of the United States, I don’t think there has ever been as much time and money spent on discrediting a political figure as there has been on Hillary Clinton. Twenty-five years ago, the leaders of the Republican Party, with their paid attack dogs, launched a hate campaign against Bill Clinton’s wife. That campaign started at the beginning of 1990 with mouthpieces like Emmett Tyrell, Jr., who has written innumerable articles and four books opposing the Clintons. When Tyrell succeeded in getting Republican magnate Richard Mellon Scaife to contribute $2.4 million to the campaign, it was officially designated the Arkansas Project. Today it is not possible to determine how many millions are spent every day by privately held companies like The Washington Free Beacon, America Rising, Burning Glass Consulting and Citizens United to discredit Hillary.

Moreover, Republican members of Congress have not hesitated to use government money, or money from campaign donations, to bankroll a unique quest: to investigate Hillary Clinton until they find some illegality that she may have committed. Several committees started with Hillary Clinton’s activities as an attorney in the state of Arkansas on a project known as Whitewater, but ended with something quite different: the prosecution of president Bill Clinton for claims he made about his relationship with Monica Lewinski. Recently, new committees have investigated Hillary’s actions when she was secretary of state during the Benghazi tragedy, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and four (sic) members of his staff died.* It is estimated that the various Congressional “investigations” arising out of the Whitewater Project have cost more than $80 million. In the investigations of Benghazi, more than $30 million has been spent, without proving any guilt on the part of Hillary Clinton.

Furthermore, there is another organization that has been persecuting Hillary Clinton since 1994. Judicial Watch, financed by Republican private money, including $7.74 million from the well-known Richard Mellon Scaife, has kept the campaign to discredit Hillary alive through demands and legal claims, which have cost both the U.S. government and the Clintons a fortune to defend. Recently, Judicial Watch, which was unhappy with the FBI decision not to go forward with legal proceedings against Hillary over her use of a private server when she was secretary of state, has been investigating the relationship between Hillary, when she held that office, and the Clinton Foundation.

Another enemy of Hillary Clinton is Rupert Murdock, owner of the Fox television network. He never misses a chance to discredit Hillary, including by spreading unfounded rumors that she suffers from a neurological condition.

These efforts to bring down Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy have been joined by nothing less than the Russian government intelligence apparatus of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and by Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks; both Putin and Assange are known for their hatred of Hillary. Indeed, cyber-crime experts maintain that agents of the Russian intelligence services were responsible for hacking Democratic Party files, which were then released on various occasions by Wikileaks, in an attempt to compromise the presidential candidate.

Among the Republican Party members who are noteworthy for spreading hatred against Hillary is the ex-mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani. He has never forgiven her for being ahead of him by a humiliating 10-point margin in the U.S. Senate election in New York state in 2000 (which she won), not long before personal scandal and health reasons caused him to drop out of the race.

Today, every time that Donald Trump yells “Crooked Hillary” in one of his harangues and his supporters shout back in unison “Lock her up!,” it’s proof that the money and time invested in the hate campaign against Hillary Clinton keeps producing big dividends. Meanwhile, Hillary is leading Trump by a humiliating 10-point margin in polls in several states.

*Editor’s Note: This translation is true to the original article. However, it seems that the original is wrong in stating that Chris Stevens and four others were killed – it was Stevens and three others, for a total of four deaths.